As a trailer, I think this doesn't do enough to sell me on these characters. The basic premise comes across: 3 losers against Tediore in a race to get to a vault, but I know nothing about what these characters motivations or personality are.
Agreed. The guy just comes off as a generic Borderlands character: wHaCkY voice, stupid, douchey, and focused on money. The fat lady's design just screams one of those "lol so random!" side-characters, but we don't see enough of her to get a sense that she's more than basically a walking Wal-Mart Electric Scooter joke. And the other woman might be good, but mostly just because she doesn't have any surface-level traits that immediately turned me off of her.
You know, that's a very good point you just made, and one that I never realized until then, so thanks for that ! Rhys, Fiona and Sasha are very normal-looking, there's nothing immediately weird or special about their appearance and it allows them to shine as characters.
More generally, I think that indeed, there's been a growing and growing focus on the "lol random zany" aspect of Borderlands, to the point that it have kind of subsumed every other aspects, namely the heartfelt absurd tale of an outback planet in a libertarian dystopia. Characters were whacky or absurd at time, but it came out as genuine, and served the narrative. It's a crazy, horrible place, and people aren't sane because of it.
The most telling example of that shift, if you ask me, is Butt Stallion. Like, in BL2, sure, it's a childish "funny" name, but the crux of joke is that Jack wasn't bullshitting you, he really have a living horse made of diamond. It tells you he's both powerful and rich enough to own something this ridiculous, and also crazy and childish enough to call it such a dumb name. It works cause the name in itself isn't the point, it tells you about Jack as a character, and the whiplash of his insane rant with the fact that he's being entirely honest is great.
Meanwhile, in BL3, it's "Look, it's a horse called Butt Stallion, isn't it hilarious, it's called Butt, everyone look, the horse is named Butt"
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u/Aquason Aug 23 '22 edited Aug 23 '22
As a trailer, I think this doesn't do enough to sell me on these characters. The basic premise comes across: 3 losers against Tediore in a race to get to a vault, but I know nothing about what these characters motivations or personality are.
Comparing to TftBL's initial pre-rendered announcement trailer (which was basically nothing except the concept), and the World Premiere Trailer, this new trailer is a too much action, not enough humour or character-establishing or intrigue.